Margaret Maron - The Right Jack

Just as automatic, too, were her flirtatious manner, the way she gazed up at him through lowered eyelashes, her light touch on his sleeve, and the delicate perfume that enveloped them both when she murmured, "It is barbaric to think of money when so many were hurt last night, but a great hotel is like life, n'est-ce pas ? And life also goes on, no?"

"Yes, ma'am. But I'm afraid you've confused me with Lieutenant Harald," said Lieutenant Knight, gesturing toward Sigrid with his hat. "She's in charge here. I just represent the Navy's interests."

Beautiful, self-assured women always made Sigrid sharply conscious of how little she knew of clothes and cosmetics. She stiffened as Lucienne Ronay's hazel eyes swept over her, coolly assessing her thin figure, her shapeless slacks, her scruffy corduroy jacket, her Woolworth scarf.

Their eyes met briefly, but before Sigrid could make her own assessment, the lovely Frenchwoman exclaimed, "But how silly of me! Always the uniform makes me think this one is in charge."

A bewitching Gallic shrug of her shoulders invited them to share her amusement over minor failings.

Young Molly Baldwin smiled dutifully, as did the cowed accountant; the insurance adjuster and Lieutenant Alan Knight were indulgent.

"A natural mistake," Sigrid said dryly. "And to answer your question, we've almost finished here. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, your people can come in-shall we say tomorrow?"

" Je vous dis un grand merci , Lieutenant. See to it, please, Molly. You cannot know how unhappy it makes me to see my poor d'Aubigné Room so dérangé ." She turned back to Alan Knight as to the sun. "But what you said before, Lieutenant, I do not understand. Why has the Navy an interest in our bomb?"

Knight explained. Madame Ronay clicked her tongue sympathetically upon hearing that the wounded commander was a woman who might be permanently maimed if she survived, and Molly Baldwin paled when he told them grimly that the doctors were pessimistic about saving Commander Dixon's right arm.

"Were you here when the bomb went off?" Sigrid asked Madame Ronay.

"Alas, non ! I welcomed everyone. I wished them all bonne chance and then I left. The Contessa di Biagio had arranged a small dinner party in her suite and I was expected there. But when they came and told me what had happened, I returned at once. Quel dommage ! They told me that two were dead and many hurt."

"Did you know either of the dead men?"

"Monsieur Wolferman, only slightly. You understand. Lieutenant, three hotels keep me most busy. I have little time to play. Yet there are parties to which I must go, dinners I must attend, and Monsieur Wolferman also, I think. Two years ago, at a dinner for the governor, we sat next to each other. Since then, I see him here or there at similar places and we speak, but I do not say that I know him."

Her words were for Sigrid, yet her beautiful eyes kept straying to Lieutenant Knight. If the columnists could be trusted, Lucienne Ronay was at least twenty years older than he. Sigrid had heard that skillful makeup, careful hairdressing, and well-designed clothes could take years off a woman's appearance; but looking at Lucienne Ronay's ash-blonde hair, her flawless skin, the lush curves subtly enhanced by a designer dress of off-white cashmere, it was hard to realize that the hotel owner was almost as old as her own mother. Anne was unquestionably attractive., but no one would underestimate her age by fifteen years.

"What about Professor Sutton?" Sigrid asked.

Madame Ronay started to answer negatively, but Molly Baldwin tactfully reminded her of the CUNY group's Wednesday morning visit.

"Ah, was that Professor Sutton? But what a loss! So young and so handsome."

Molly Baldwin looked sightly shocked and the Frenchwoman gave a self-deprecating smile. "When you approach the half-century, ma petite , you will understand better that the loss of any handsome man is always reason to mourn."

Her eyes swept over the accountant and the insurance adjuster and rested provocatively on Alan Knight's clean-cut features. It was like seeing all those gossip columns come to life before his eyes and he laughed outright at this sample of the famous Lucienne Ronay outrageousness.

"No, no, no," she scolded, although clearly pleased by his pleasure. "We are very naughty to make light at such a time. Lieutenant Harald is not amused and she is right. And now, mes ami's, I must fly. Already I am late for a meeting at my Montespan. Lieutenant Harald, Lieutenant Knight-please, whatever you wish, do not hesitate to ask. I have told my staff they are to give you all the assistance you need. And Molly, too, will-ah, but no! Molly must go straight home and go to bed and not get up till all those horrid circles are gone from below her pretty eyes."

With a word to her accountant, another to the adjuster, and a dazzling smile for Lieutenant Knight, Lucienne Ronay swept from the room, off to the smallest of her three Manhattan hotels where she intended to learn precisely why the Montespan had received two letters of complaint in the past month. Heads would roll.

As the victim in the last nine months of similar interrogations, Molly Baldwin did not envy her Montespan colleagues; and, her employer's words to the contrary, she knew she was expected to remain at the Maintenon this afternoon for as long as Lieutenant Harald needed her. No matter that her nerve ends were screaming for release or that her body felt as if she were moving through deep water. Instead, she must force herself to smile pleasantly at the two investigators, to wait expectantly until they had finished poking and prying.

"We'll check with Lowry and Albee, see what they've come up with so far," Sigrid told Lieutenant Knight, "and then I want to have a talk with this Ted Flythe of Graphic Games. If Ms. Baldwin can give us his address…?"

"Certainly," Molly replied, "but you don't need his address. He's just across the landing. In the Bontemps Room. Didn't someone tell you? They decided not to cancel the tournament."

IT surprised the hell out of me, too. Lieutenant," Ted Flythe admitted frankly. He sat on an imitation eighteenth-century settee upholstered in mauve silk and gazed at the nearly four hundred people engrossed in their cards and hunched over their cribbage boards. According to a small plaque near the gold-and-white enameled double doors, The Bontemps Room was named for one of Madame de Maintenon's godparents. It was slightly smaller but just as ornate as the damaged d'Aubigné Room. The walls were covered with murals meant to depict the court of Louis XIV at play; elaborately bewigged and silk-suited courtiers sported beneath the trees with equally bewigged and lavishly dressed ladies. The ceiling far overhead simulated a celestial blue sky enhanced by puffy white clouds and interspersed with golden sunbursts from which depended brass and crystal chandeliers.

It was a room meant for formal music, for dancers in tuxedos and jewel-toned taffetas, for the discreet clink of champagne glasses and witty repartee. It was not quite the setting for these cribbage players casually dressed in corduroy or plaid wool slacks and autumn-colored sweaters, who kept the ventilating system busy dispersing clouds of cigarette smoke, and who broke the room's pastel serenity with smothered laughter and occasional raucous cries of 'fifteen four and there ain't no more!'

"I held a meeting with the players this morning, told them I was authorized to refund all the entrance fees, but they wanted to go ahead with the tournament," said Mr. Flythe. "Not everybody. Not those who were hurt of course; a good number were too frightened to stay, but look at this!"

He gestured toward the tables. "Over three hundred and fifty people! Hell of a note, isn't it? You'd think they'd be afraid their board might be next."